"An Abu Dhabi teacher with six years’ experience and a bachelor’s degree said she had benefited from the pay structure.

“It’s teachers like me that don’t have to pay for housing that have benefited,” she said. “I live in my parents’ house so I don’t have housing to pay. Most teachers have to pay rent which is why the new pay structure does not help them.”

Same deal as HCT, most have lost out. Especially in the more expensive Emirates. Can't believe they've treated their own like this. Only sign of hope is if enough teachers kick up a stick, then we may all see a pay-rise earlier rather than later

It is really hard to drum up any sympathy for public schools teachers who are complaining because they are only being paid about $9500 a month... and getting a housing allowance when most of them are probably living in a villa or flat that was already provided to them free by the government when they (or their parents) married. Even the highest paid teachers in the US make half that... and the vast majority will be making less than that...

And then she complained about having to do all the work that any normal teacher is expected to do around the world... except for a fraction of that pay.

So, exactly how is it that these teachers have been so horribly abused????

""I used to get Dh24,000. Now I’m getting Dh34,000, but because they included housing and [President] Sheikh Khalifa’s grant, which should not be included in our salaries in the first place,” she said."

“We are overworked and all have medical conditions from the hours of teaching. We are now asked to be ‘complete teachers’, which means we have to deal with parents, be guidance counsellors, arrange activities, be mothers and a million other things. This is impossible.”

When salaries become the topic, it is the norm to speak of a monthly salary.
The salary package is the accommodation, transportation and health insurance. Usually, recruiters will include the accommodation with the salary to make it look like a more lucrative deal.

I don't believe that is the norm. Salary should be quoted as pay - and one should insist on that figure as it is what the gratuity is based on. The rest is benefits and allowances - which were always listed out separately both in my offer letters and contracts. University jobs are normally given in that way. We have very few public school or even international schools teachers posting here. Not to mention that those are about the only jobs using recruiters in the UAE.

As I have said, a teacher in the UAE will not receive $9,500 USD as a monthly salary. The accommodation allowance has been included into the above monthly salary.

Oh please... this teacher is complaining because she gets US$6500 per month salary plus another near $3000 a month for "housing??" Why should a local person be getting a housing allowance in the first place?

Only a tiny percentage of US or UK or wherever teachers will get anywhere near her salary and I can guarantee that NONE of them get money for housing added to the top of it. (and no travel allowances or gratuities either)

Then this spoiled child whines that she has to actually do a normal teaching job to earn it.

The mind boggles at how spoiled, self-centered, greedy, and lazy she sounds...

will try again n again.........n again. I might get in cause they couldn't find a teacher. cheers

The teachers being discussed in the article are local, native Emirati teachers, not foreign/overseas hires from the Anglosphere/elsewhere. There are no overseas K-12 teachers in any Middle Eastern/GCC nation being paid $9500 per month. Even most overseas-hire university professors and EAL/ESOL lecturers don't make $6500 per month (not including the $3000 housing allowance). The only foreign hire educators bringing in such salaries are with Aramco or one of the other oil or aerospace companies in the GCC.

will try again n again.........n again. I might get in cause they couldn't find a teacher. cheers

The teachers being discussed in the article are local, native Emirati teachers, not foreign/overseas hires from the Anglosphere/elsewhere. There are no overseas K-12 teachers in any Middle Eastern/GCC nation being paid $9500 per month. Even most overseas-hire university professors and EAL/ESOL lecturers don't make $6500 per month (not including the $3000 housing allowance). The only foreign hire educators bringing in such salaries are with Aramco or one of the other oil or aerospace companies in the GCC.